The four types of cultural quarters, progressively speaking
Speaking of natural cultural districts...
Urban Cultures is a London-based company with extensive experience in helping develop creative cultural quarters throughout major cities in England, Ireland, Scotland, New Zealand and Australia that raise the bar in defining 'cool towns', including a CoolTown favorite, the Temple Bar cultural district (pictured) in Dublin. John Montgomery, the Managing Director, is an internationally-recognized hero when it comes to helping develop cultural quarters. Here's his analysis of the four different types of cultural quarters cities invest in, only the latter two being natural cultural districts...
"Most great cities have identifiable quarters to which artists and cultural entrepreneurs are attracted, whether it's Soho in London, New York’s Lower East Side, or the Left Bank in Paris. Such places have a long history, and appear to have happened by accident or at least in the general development of a city over time. More recently, some cultural quarters have deliberately been planned, to varying degrees of success.
Cultural precincts or quarters fall into four categories:
- museum cultural districts (eg South Kensington in London; Adelaide's North Terrace)
- institutional cultural districts - a cross-over of the above with major performing arts institutions (London South Bank, Melbourne South Bank)
- metropolitan cultural districts - where cultural venues in the main are part of a dynamic urban mix (Temple Bar in Dublin, London's West End), and these include smaller and medium-sized elements;
- industrial cultural districts - centres of production both for the plastic arts and the creative and design industries (Sheffield CIQ, London’s ‘cultural clusters’ and Tilburg in Holland).
The first two of these are oriented towards art as a good thing, an expression of civilization and of ‘cultural consumption’. The third is more closely related to urban-place making and mixed-use city diversity. The fourth is directly linked to the notion of the new economy and mixed media, and therefore the generation of new work, businesses and employment. However, there are many examples of planned cultural precincts that fail as urban destinations, remaining dismal, windswept and under-used."
Next entry: Part two - Cultural Quarters: Necessary conditions and success factors
Image: Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland